 Hello and welcome to Understand Men Now. I'm Jonathan Asley of johnathanasley.com and I'm so excited to be shooting this short video for you today. Our topic we're going to talk about healthy boundaries in three ways to set healthy boundaries. Okay, you're going to learn three ways. All right, really quickly, if you're new to my YouTube channel, please hit the subscribe button. Hit the bell. I shoot about three videos per week for your entertainment and for your wisdom as well. All right, our topic, we're going to talk about healthy boundaries. So are you familiar with the work of Brene Brown? If you're not, please do me a favor, Google Brene Brown right now, type in boundaries. I highly recommend reading her work. She is brilliant, but I like the way she puts together the idea of boundaries. And I'm going to be talking about specifically men in relationships, but what she says is what's okay and what's not okay for me. What's okay and what's not okay for me. I love that as a definition of a boundary, but we're going to take it a step deeper when it comes to setting boundaries with men, especially in romantic relationships. Okay, number one, number one, you're going to want to establish your standards, your standards. Now, when I think of a standard, I think about the other side of a coin to a boundary. But what I mean by standard is what does a relationship look like for you? Repeat, what does a relationship look like for you? Now, for those in midlife, and that's my area of specialty, it's a lot different than those in your 20s and 30s, those folks that are looking to start a family, to raise a family, as the primary reason for getting into a relationship. But in midlife, it's much more complicated. So understanding what a relationship looks like for you and that's your standard. So let me give you an example I'll share from my own personal experience. A relationship looks like something like this for me. I'd like to spend three or four days and nights a week together doing shared activities, hobbies, mutual interests, spending time with family and friends, traveling together, teamwork and partnership building skills, both in our personal and professional life, as well as intimacy. That's my standard. That's what I'm looking for. That's what I want in relationship. So to be able to set a healthy boundary, you have to know what your standard is and that's number one. Number two is establish, so he said establishing standards, now we're going to establish the rules for a relationship, the rules for a relationship. Now, I know this goes against what everyone's teaching is, don't set rules, don't set rules. Let me tell you at midlife, it's all about setting the rules, which is really the other side of the, so we have the boundaries as the other standards, the other side of the boundaries and rules as the other side of standards. And what I mean by what your rules are is establish what is the premise, what's the purpose for being in a relationship with this guy, what's the purpose and sadly, most men are effing clueless. They're clueless to the rules of a relationship. This is one of the reasons why I highly recommend checking out the book Eight Dates, Eight Dates by Dr. John Gottman. You have, because this literally establishes the mechanics to a healthy, happy relationships and when you understand the mechanics to a healthy, happy relationship, for example, there's a chapter in there about money, there's a chapter in there about sex, there's a chapter in there about conflict resolution, there's a chapter in there about family and friends, what I talked about earlier. So by understanding the mechanics of relationships, you're literally establishing the rules by how you're going to progress as you're getting to know someone. Now I understand this is difficult because you've been so infused with this ideas, just have fun, just go out and have fun. It's all about having fun. The reality is, is at our age, at midlife, look, if we can have all the fun we want, but let me tell you something, if you go on date after date after date after date, what I mean with a different person, different person, different person, especially if you start doing one date a week for a year, imagine being introduced to 52 people in your life. That is not only exhausting, but it's also emotionally detrimental because if you've had one rejection after another after another and I'm not suggesting you're being rejected, I mean you could be doing the rejection, but that's just exhausting. I want to help you narrow this down. This is why if you're single and looking for help, check out the link to my free discovery call to see if coaching is right for you. My area of specialty is helping single women learn how to vet men so you don't waste time going out on 52 dates in one year. How about we narrow it down to five guys in one year and you get to choose from them? Wouldn't that be better? If you say yes, please post a comment below. And the third way we're going to talk about establishing healthy boundaries with men is establishing a healthy daily self-love practice. Let me repeat that. Establishing a healthy daily self-love practice and if you're not familiar with my book, What the heck is self-love anyway? I wrote a book to help you begin a journey so you can have a daily practice of self-love because ladies, let me tell you something. I've witnessed this time and time again. So many of you have been conditioned. I need you to love me for me to feel good about myself. I need you to love me for me to feel good about myself. And ladies, many of you just give your power away to a guy because you've established the other rules of let the men be chivalrous and chase because men go after they want and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, that's great in theory, but we know in reality most men are clueless and sadly most women are clueless. This is why when you've established a healthy self-love practice and that's a daily practice of not just sitting meditating and doing alms per se, it's more about nourishing your inner child, your inner child, taking care of that little child in you because oftentimes what's coming out in relationship, what causes boundaries to be so weak is that your adult isn't running the show, your child is running the show and I want you to shift that by establishing a daily self-love practice to make that change. Is this resonating with you? Is this is this sinking in? If it is, please post a comment below. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. If you've got any questions posted as well or write me privately, I do my best to shoot videos based on the questions you ask. So boundaries is one that's been asked quite a bit and I thought I'd help you out today. All right, I'm going to wrap up this video as I always do. First off, giving myself a big gigantic Jonathan Bear hug of self-love. I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm going to ask you to turn to someone or a pet or a pillow or even a teddy bear and give it a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love and we can all use more love in our lives. I want to thank you much and wishing you a super duper wonderful day. Bye-bye now!